Daily Wire investigative reporter Christina Buttons revealed she was leaving the conservative media outlet over inflammatory statements from hosts Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles.
Buttons revealed her decision to leave the Daily Wire on her Substack in a post titled: “Why I’m Leaving the Daily Wire.”
“After much consideration, I am tendering my resignation from the Daily Wire, a publication to which I dedicated my time and passion as an investigative reporter for the last six months,” Buttons revealed in a Tuesday post. “My interest in the transgender debate became all-consuming when I realized that so many of our trusted institutions—the mainstream media, government, academia, civil rights and gay rights organizations, big tech, and the medical establishment—were misled on this issue and were misleading the public in turn.”
“I work hard getting the facts right and using precise language because of the heated nature of the gender debate, with so much at stake, while their pundits dump gasoline all over it for entertainment and clicks,” Buttons said.
I’m leaving The Daily Wire. I work hard getting the facts right and using precise language because of the heated nature of the gender debate, with so much at stake, while their pundits dump gasoline all over it for entertainment and clicks.https://t.co/Zbk5F92cNO
— Christina Buttons (@buttonslives) March 7, 2023
The investigative reporter referred to Walsh’s 2022 documentary What is a Woman? as a “brilliant commentary on the state of our culture.”
“Matt Walsh didn’t insult his interviewees, but instead let them embarrass themselves with deeply incoherent attempts to answer a question any first grader should be able to answer,” she continued, noting her liberal parents enjoyed the documentary. “So, when The Daily Wire approached me with the opportunity to write exclusively on transgender issues with an emphasis on pediatric gender medicine, I accepted.”
However, Buttons cited Walsh’s Valentine’s Day segment referring to TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who identifies as a transgender woman, as “weird and artificial.”
“You are manufactured and lifeless, you are unearthly and eerie, you are like some kind of human deepfake,” Walsh said of Mulvaney. “Everyone [who] looks at you will see something pitiable and bizarre.”
Walsh defended his comments as a “good strategy,” saying the goal is not to “convince the other side” but rather “defeat, humiliate, and demoralize” opponents.
“This triggered a race to the bottom, with other social media personas one-upping each other to see who can take more extreme stances,” Buttons said of Walsh’s diatribe, countering his comments by noting “there are transsexuals who are not ideologues.”
Buttons further suggested Walsh’s comments may have inspired Knowles’ comments during Saturday’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington D.C.
“Many left-wing media outlets deliberately misinterpreted Knowles’ claim that ‘transgenderism’ should be ‘eradicated from public life entirely’ as a call for ‘eradicating transgender people,’ and many later corrected their headlines to accurately reflect the quote,” she said of outlets including the Daily Beast and Rolling Stone. “A generous interpretation of Knowles’ statement is that he wishes to eradicate gender ideology, a postmodern social theory, from public life. So why not say that? On this issue it is extremely important to clearly distinguish between people and ideas so as not to feed into Left-wing manufactured hysteria about impending genocides.”
The investigative reporter criticized the “political right” for rallying against identity politics though “failing” to distinguish between transgender people and transgender activists.
“Not all transgender people are transgender activists. … Likewise, not all transgender activists are themselves transgender,” she continued. “Being transgender is not innate and biological the same way that being gay is. Many are socially influenced to adopt transgender identities for a variety of reasons and are medically ‘affirmed‘ without proper evaluation.”
“Winning over hearts and minds is difficult enough without inflammatory statements such as ‘transgenderism must be eradicated from public life,'” Buttons wrote. “There is a critical distinction between speaking truth and being tactless, between sticking to the facts and sticking it to the libs.”
She continued:
As a journalist and reporter, I dedicate my days and nights to meticulously surveying data, scouring the primary literature, and choosing the best words to accurately convey the truth. But such painstaking attention to detail is rendered meaningless when the company’s flagship entertainers and personalities speak impulsively and deploy divisive rhetoric for entertainment and clicks. This is not a game, and we cannot afford to make these issues overtly partisan. The bodies, minds, and lives of children are being permanently damaged, and everyone, not just reporters and journalists, has a duty to approach this issue with the seriousness it demands.
“I can no longer in good faith maintain my employment with the Daily Wire,” she concluded. “But when my employer can no longer make good on the promise I was given at the start of my employment, my only recourse is to resign.”
